


Knowing When to Paws

by Lunasong365



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Domestic, Gen, Illustrated, Kitten, cottage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 19:30:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7003024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunasong365/pseuds/Lunasong365
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s an addition to the Fell-Crowley household.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knowing When to Paws

“Mama? MAMA?”

Now that I was old enough to take naps without Mama curled up beside me, I knew she was helping me develop my independence by leaving me alone for safe amounts of time. She’d never before failed to respond instantly to my cry.

I’d been awakened from my slumber by the ache of my empty stomach. Snug in my bed with worn but soft blankets nestled around me, I peered through the dim light at the four walls that had framed my universe ever since I’d been born. A bright light escaped into the darkness of my room via the crack underneath the door. I’d never been beyond it, and its contents were a mystery to me.

The light, however, I understood. It appeared in the morning, crept across the floor and lengthened, and dust motes floated in its wake. When the light appeared, the room felt warmer, and as it was slowly eclipsed each night by shadows into darkness, I would snuggle deep into my blankets with Mama by my side. I didn’t need the light to see, but I’d always seen it as a friendly indicator of what lay beyond the door.

Mama had been beyond the door. She didn’t know how to open it, but she had other means. She’d told me stories of a world bigger than I could imagine, with soft breezes and green grass and food for the taking. She’d spoken of others of our kind, who sauntered proudly atop fence-rails and sang to the moon. I didn’t know what either of those were, but Mama had said to wait just a little longer. Soon I’d be able to venture beyond the door.

I crawled out of my blanket-nest and stretched and yawned, extending my little pink tongue, then curling it past my needle-sharp teeth back inside my mouth. I clambered over to the reflecting glass propped against one wall and studied myself. Mama had always called me a handsome boy, and I guess I was. I looked a lot like her. I quickly washed my face, then circled the room, padding carefully around the various implements that leaned against the vertical wooden slats of its interior boundaries. “Mama?” I called again. I missed her comforting presence.

  ^   ^

Several hours later, the light had disappeared, and night enveloped the room. I huddled under my blankets and thought of Mama. Where could she be? Newly energized by the pangs of my stomach, I climbed out of bed and ran toward the door. I lay on my side and stretched my paw through the crack. I cried piteously. I was hungry and cold and lonely and just a bit scared. I’d never before been alone for this long. My Mama had always been there for me, keeping me warm and fed and clean and loved. I missed her more than my tiny heart could hold. I desolately returned to the blankets and circled myself into a tiny ball, wishing more than anything as I drifted off to sleep that my Mama had been here to comfort me.

  ^   ^

The light from under the door splayed across my face as I awoke alone again. As my eyes adjusted to the light levels, I noticed a black spider creeping across the floor. Previously, I’d played with it, batting it around, only to let it escape. Now I realized the play had been practice for real-life survival. I stealthily crept toward the spider and hesitated, then pounced upon it. Its juices crunched between my molars as I greedily swallowed its sustenance. With breakfast accomplished, the immediate demands of my stomach were temporarily quelled.

My mama had been missing now for almost a day. “Mama!” I called as loud as I could, then held my breath to listen. I heard the chirping of what Mama had called birds and the occasional but distant foul-smelling roar of motor vehicles. Mama had told me terrifying bedtime stories about them, as they were the most dangerous thing in our world. At the time I had merely shivered and snuggled more closely to her, but now the thought of my missing Mama made me frantic. Could she have tried to fight a motor vehicle on her way back to me?

I sat by the door and cried for my Mama. As the light shifted across the room, I continued. Surely, she would hear me and come! I circled the room again, examining all it varied contents. Just as I’d decided to lay down by the crack again, the door opened and sudden light flooded the room. I skittered back to the corner and hid behind my blanket bed.

A creature entered, walking on two legs. He gazed around with intent; looking for something. For me! I cowered in fear. He was so much larger than me or even Mama. He was the biggest thing I’d ever seen!

“I _knew_ I heard a cat in here,” he muttered to himself. I peered at him over the mound of blankets. His eyes were like mine in the sunbeam –- golden yellow with slitted vertical pupils. He knelt and suddenly didn’t seem so huge and threatening. He reached out his hand toward me and smiled. I could see his sharp fangs and nervously licked my own. “Here, kitty, kitty,” he called.

I stared at him, unblinking. He waited with the patience of someone who’d had practice waiting for centuries. I waited with the patience of someone who knew his lives were numbered. Finally, he sighed and waved his hand. An irresistible odour filled the air.

“Cheese,” he announced. “You _won’t_ resist it.” He knew me so well even though we’d just met! I was so hungry and so tempted; I could no longer hold back. I crept cautiously across the room toward his open palm, and soon was greedily snapping at the cheese lump as he gently caressed my back. Purring was simply a reflex.

 

   ^ ^  
=ΦoΦ=

 

Crowley picked up the tiny black kitten and tucked it carefully inside his coat. He shut the shed door and turned to tread up the slight rise to the cottage. The grass was still wet with dew, and seagulls called overhead, circling and dipping in motions of flight that Crowley knew all too well. The kitten snuggled trustingly into the crook of his elbow.

The demon closed the door of the cottage and glanced toward the lounge, where Aziraphale was seated at the computer, studying some notes and making entries. “I found an orphaned kitten in the shed,” he announced.

“Oh, my,” said Aziraphale, eyeing the fuzzy coal-coloured lump that Crowley produced from his coat. He rose and approached the pair, their golden eyes almost a perfect match in both hue and expression. “I suppose we should make sure it’s well-fed and healthy before we take it to the animal rescue.”

“I was thinking of keeping him,” Crowley countered. “Every cat needs a home. Or every home needs a cat. They both work. He won’t be any trouble at all.” The small feline was wearing its most heart-melting, adorable expression as it rubbed its head into Aziraphale’s fingers, and kneaded its soft paws against Crowley’s forearm. Its purr was a tiny echo of the Bentley’s powerful engine.

“But cats… “ worried the angel, “they…they tear thing up with their claws. And they vomit. Randomly.” He nervously glanced toward his book collection. “And… they have a tendency to chew on plants.”

Now Crowley looked worried. “We’ll just have to make sure that he doesn’t. Now, I’m going to run out to Tesco to buy some things and leave you both here to get better acquainted.”

  ^   ^

Crowley returned with a carton of cat food pouches, a bag of litter, scoop and box, and enough catnip toys to cause hallucinations in a clowder of kittens. Aziraphale was sitting in his armchair with a book, the kitten nestled asleep in a circle in his lap. The scene was cloyingly peaceful and domestic. Crowley grinned.

“He can stay,” conceded Aziraphale. “His name is Oscar.”

 

  

[Artist: Vako](http://my-name-is-vako.tumblr.com/post/151436453803) (more info in Notes)

 

“Oscar!” called Aziraphale. “Oscar! Where are you?” He worriedly searched the bedroom, then headed down the hall toward the lounge. “Crowley, have you see……. Whaaapth!”THUMP.

Crowley came from around the corner to find Aziraphale splayed out on the floorboards in an imperfect five-point landing. “What happened?” he asked.

Aziraphale sat up and examined the bottom of his foot. “Cat chunder,” he grimaced. “Ow, that stings!”

“Could have been worse,” Crowley consoled, thinking fondly of the angel’s well-padded derriere.

He helped Aziraphale to his armchair and brought him an ice pack from the freezer. The angel leaned back and gratefully said, “Thank you, Crowley.”  

Just then Oscar entered the room, looked quizzically up at the two, and headed toward them. He stretched up and sharpened his claws against the chair’s nubby tartan fabric, then jumped into Aziraphale’s lap and settled in.

Crowley grabbed a towel from the kitchen to clean up the hallway. The puke was spattered with little shredded flecks of green.

 

   ^ ^  
=ΦoΦ=

 

Down near the shed, Crowley rang up Aziraphale on his mobile. “I could really use your help here for a few minutes. I’ve got a job that needs another hand.”

There was a pause.

“I can’t get up.”

“What do you mean, ‘you can’t get up?’ Did you hurt yourself again in the last ten minutes since I left? Or are you absorbed in a book and blanking me?”

Another pause.

“I can’t get up because the cat is asleep on my lap.”

 

   ^ ^  
=ΦoΦ=

 

“Mrrrroooooow!”

Aziraphale was in the kitchen, having just turned out the scone dough onto a floured surface for kneading.  “Crowley!” he called toward the bedroom. “Can you please check what the cat wants?”

Crowley turned over and reluctantly tugged the covers from over his face. “Prob’ly wants to come in,” he mumbled as he slithered out of bed and padded toward the front door.

He opened it to the sight of a splendid young cat with a mouse in his mouth. Aziraphale joined him in the doorway, wiping his hands on a towel.

“Oh dear,” the angel said. “I guess it can’t be helped. That’s the nature of cats.”

“Looksss deliciousss,” added Crowley.

Aziraphale chided, “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of eating that, Crowley!”

The demon’s eyes gleamed, but he refrained from movement until Aziraphale had retreated inside. He gently pried the still-wiggling mouse from Oscar’s proud jaws and cupped it in his hands, healing the bite marks, then released it into the flower bed next to the cottage steps.

“No _need_ to eat mice,” Crowley muttered, “when Aziraphale has those good currant scones baking in the kitchen.”

 

   ^ ^  
=ΦoΦ=

 

On the sofa, a demon leaned close against his angel. The two had long ago found a peace that did not mirror the quiet claiming of territory by the evening shadows that crept across the room in the cyclical daily contest between dark and light.

A dusky cat was curled in the angel’s lap. It is said that a cat will not long remain in an atmosphere of discord, choosing instead to look elsewhere for contentment.

Oscar was settled in at home.

**Author's Note:**

> "Happy is the home with at least one cat" - Italian proverb
> 
> I've had the idea of a cat relating to Crowley because of their similar eyes for several months now, but finally sat down and wrote this. The title is from a Jack Benny quote that has nothing to do with cats.
> 
> Edit: through happy happenstance, artist Vako had created a scene that reminded me of this fic. She has kindly permitted its use for illustration.  
> http://my-name-is-vako.tumblr.com


End file.
